“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.” Aristotle

Izzatso? Was Aristotle right and, even if he was in ancient Greece, would he be right now?

I think so, and this is why – let’s look at each and consider an example that illustrates how sound his thinking was. (Although I am surprised he said it in English as it predates that language by hundreds of years.)

Chance: does anything happen that arises unexpectedly and gives rise to a response? Do events occur that no-one anticipated? One word: Brexit. ‘Nuff said. This is something that even the most devout EU-phobes would never have thought would occur, but now the Remainers who thought the same bitch about the Government’s failure to have a plan ready in advance. Heigh-ho.

Nature: if you accept that nature can pre-determine behaviour, you have to acknowledge that nature can pre-empt response. It isn’t obligatory, of course, because the next cause is the counter of this one.

Reason: something happens, and we approach it from the perspective of curiosity allied to logic – this has happened, so what can we do about it?

Compulsions: ask any addict.

Habit: how often have you been driving from A to C for a change, and found yourself heading to B like always?

Desire: you want it so you get it. This happens consciously as in having a plan that needs execution, but it also happens psychologically when you see/hear something and conclude it has a meaning that suits your viewpoint. For example, you conclude that anything Trump does is bad, even if it isn’t.

Passion: this happens when you have created a vested self-interest in an outcome and you pursue it single-mindedly.

You know it makes sense: there are certain principles behind human behaviour that dictate our response. If we let them.

I say ‘if we let them’ because although there may only be 7 causes for action, we can use any of the 7 causes to precede our actions and are not obliged to use the one that involved no consideration at all. That is the essence of proactivity – turning ‘I have to do this because (cause)’ into ‘I am going to do this because I choose (cause)’.

I did that once with a b411-aching job, where I turned a habitual response of ‘this will be tedium’ into a passionate response of ‘how much of this can I get done to the point it will be a spectacular result’. It worked for that day, at least.

Study your own life – how many of your actions have been influenced by Aristotles’ causes? All, some, or none? I’m guessing all.

And where you think you need to – can you identify a better ’cause’, one that serves your purpose rather than obstructs your success? It may take discipline to execute on your new ’cause’, but it’ll be worth it in terms of self-esteem when you realise you control life, and it doesn’t control you.

They never apologise. Do you know why that is? It’s because other politicians don’t understand gratitude or humility in victory.

For example, party A has a policy, and a policy is usually well considered by many before it is announced. Party B decries it and demands changes.

Now, for all the best will in the world, there will be factors Party A didn’t consider because of a lack of omnipotence, and there will be factors they considered because of their value structure. (That is, the right tends to promote personal responsibility and conservation of what is, while the left tends to promote societal responsibility and want constant change in that direction.)

With that in mind, something comes to light or an alternative viewpoint is acknowledged and accepted, and Party A adapts the plan. Immediately, Party B rips into them for ‘U-Turns’ and ‘lack of leadership’ and ‘strife within the party’ and all that cobblers.

Try managing with that over your head. It is exactly like you making an honest mistake at work, apologising, and then being punished, attacked, demotes, moved, etc., despite correcting your error.

So instead of apologising, you try to justify yourself. Like any political party.

They don’t tell the truth. Occasionally, they do lie. (See above.) But one thing I learned from a lawyer years ago is that professional ethics occasionally mean they have to take a certain line – in the lawyer’s case I discovered that if a client tells them ‘I did it, get me off’ then they cannot sit there and listen to them lie. They have to go no comment. When I learned that I changed my approach from “solicitors are gits” to “No comment, eh? I must be on to something!”

It is fair to say that senior politicians are privy to secrets and confidences, just like us. And just like us, when asked about them, they have to avoid answering ‘correctly’. Which means avoiding the question or using another tactic. Bear in mind that even the answer, “I can’t tell you that, it’s an official secret” breaches the Official Secrets Act as it (usually) confirms a presupposition in the question asked.

Occasionally, they don’t know the answer. Of course, ‘we’ know everything and expect the same of them. When they say ‘I don’t know’, the ‘examiner’ with the answer in front of them attacks them for not knowing that random statistic. Then the press joins in. Now, if the subject of the interview is clear and it is an obvious question, the politician should have prepared. But surprise questions with stats held by the interviewer shouldn’t be abused by the press. Anyway, they aren’t allowed to not know the answer, so they avoid giving one, which looks like avoidance of a truth.

They waffle. It’s often quite funny watching this. A question is asked, and it is immediately answered with ‘Let me clear (about something else)’, or ‘The reality is (party political broadcast)’ or ‘The real question is (combination of both)’.

Nobody likes to answer uncomfortable questions, least of all us. Politicians are made up of ‘us’ but with the added expectation that they ‘must’ be transparent. Give them some slack and know when they are uncomfortable. They don’t want to offend the voters, even while offending the Opposition.

They have no manners. To my mind, there seems to be a complete – and ineffective – lack of manners when it comes to politicians and political interviewers. Interviewer asks a question, and as the interviewee draws breath they start attacking the answer not yet given, or the ‘opposing’ guest butts in. How wonderful it was to see Jacob Rees-Mogg and Vince Cable debate Brexit politely and intelligently without interrupting each other.

You can’t challenge a viewpoint or opinion effectively without listening to it, considering it, and seeing the holes. The ‘loudest shouter’ isn’t necessarily right. Make notes, wait yur turn, and then state your views. They are a lot easier to hear when you’re not arguing over each other.

What has all of this got to do with The Three Resolutions?

The Second Resolution argues for Character and Competence. For politicians, the spin doctors have invented a new competence – political avoidance, with training provided. (I find that non-pointing fist thing annoyingly inane, most of all.) Every statement must be slapped down and ridiculed by the opposing party, even when their own point of view is equally unclear through the same prevarication, avoidance or opinion. ‘The end justifies the means’, they say: but this means attacking the ‘enemy’ for doing what you would do yourself, but in the belief that their motives are evil while yours are good. Your ‘bad’ means are done for good ends, while their ‘bad’ means are done for ‘evil’.

Poppy-llocks.

What I would welcome is an improvement in the Character Ethic of the politicians and the media. Ask open questions, listen to answers quietly and respectfully, and then challenge in an appropriate tone and with considered responses where necessary. Acknowledge and respect the willingness or reluctance of the interviewee to provide answers and see things from their perspective, even if just at first. Just like Jac and Vic. Let your intellect say what your emotional outbursts actually obscure.

As a police officer, I was expected to do that when dealing with rapists and murderers. Wouldn’t it be nice if politicians and newsreaders gave the same respect to each other that I was expected to provide to the worst in society?

Let people change their minds; let them have secrets but let them say why it is a secret; interview them politely and challenge waffle – let them say ‘I don’t know, and I’ll find out’. It’s supposed to be about discovering the facts, not necessarily about finding them out in a convenient TV slot.

Let politicians rediscover Character as an ethical approach to politics, instead of perpetuating the ethic of Personality, where looking good is more important than being good.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness.” Stephen R Covey

Despite the uninformed dismissiveness of friends and foe I have, for the past 20-odd years, been an advocate of the 7 Habits ‘philosophy’ – not a good word but it’s short. People who deride the awfully-named ‘self-help’ genre and therefore who have never taken a moment to understand it, suggest that the field, and the 7 Habits book in particular, have the intention of restricting my (their) thinking. Of course, some fields like Scientology and cults do just that, but the essential difference between what my friends think and the actuality is this: the 7 Habits do not in any way tell you what to think. What it does is tell you is that you can think, and provides a framework you can apply to thinking. But what you think is entirely up to you.

I write this week’s blog following the election of The Donald to the Presidency of the USA. Last night, following (arguably) anti-democratic and violent protests by people deriding ‘hate politics’ – the irony escapes them – I watched a YouTube vignette you can see here (pardon the ad). In it, the speaker tells the politicians that the reason DT was elected was because the people had realised that the ‘liberal elite’ (read socialists-with-a-small-s and their supporters) had been telling us what we can think, and what we can say, for so long that the electorate said “enough!”. He suggested that attacks on those who held and proffered thoughts other than the politically-correct had given rise to a backlash. People were being viciously and loudly attacked for having the temerity to hold and verbalise a different opinion for so long, that they spoke out in the ballot box. They voted, “STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO THINK!”

I agree. I suspect that the (quote Fox News, for a laugh) the ‘mainstream liberal media’ had spent so much time attacking DT that ‘the people’ decided to stop being told what to think, and to ‘think’ and therefore ‘do’ the opposite, perhaps out of spite for the media. I don’t know if this is so, but as the guy who sometimes likes the underdog to win, this constant ‘look what he did!’ approach just pushes me to think the opposite. I suspect the US electorate felt the same.

Which takes me to the quote and tone of this post.

Contrary to the political elite’s apparent view, I DO have the choice on what to think. Habit 1 is about being proactive and realising there IS a choice, and I can use a lot of things to make that choice.

And if I am left alone to think it WITHOUTbeing attacked for thinking things, eventually I can use my self-awareness, independent will, creative imagination and conscience to decide what is right and what is wrong, for myself.

I don’t need to be lectured, I need to be informed and encouraged. I don’t need to be attacked, I need evidence. I don’t need to be shouted down, I need to be heard. And above all, to hear you I need to know that YOU understand what you are saying and that it is objective, that it is not just a dogmatic ideology (well-meant or not), one which you have not objectively tested but to which you slavishly adhere.

That’s the odd reason why, even though I don’t like Jeremy Corbyn’s politics, I can respect him because he truly believes them, while I cannot respect Diane Abbott because she espouses socialism and quality education for all while sending her own kids to private school.

I will question the ‘thinking ability’ of anyone who is slavishly adherent to a ‘side’ in politics. And I will listen to anyone who is willing to change their mind. For example, I ‘hated’ UK gay-rights activist Peter Tatchell for a long time – not because he was gay but because of his confrontational tactics. But I saw him last week defending the right of Irish bakers NOT to be forced by the Irish courts to contravene their values in wanting to not bake a pro-gay marriage cake. That demonstrated thinking. Quality thinking. I can now respect, even admire him.

Use the gap – use your brain. Don’t be told what to think. Think properly, so that you can be sure that what you think is right.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” Michelangelo

Observant readers would have seen that I have changed the top of the page to better reflect the objectives of The Three Resolutions in three words. The ‘new’ R-word that reflect The Second Resolution is Refinement.

Please don’t think I am going to promote or counsel the adoption of better speech, tidier dress and the lifting of the little finger when taking tea, even if adoption of the first two of those suggestions wouldn’t please me. If you want to be scruffy and sound like a half-wit, good for you.

I am writing about, and proposing the adoption of a focus on making your own behaviour more closely match the behaviours that you believe reflect the ‘best you’ that you can possibly be. The Second Resolution covered this in using the words ‘To overcome the restraining forces of pride and pretension I resolve to work on character and competence’.

Refinement is the physical manifestation of the metaphor used by Michelangelo. It’s about chipping away at those things – habits, characteristics, emotions and activities – that don’t serve us or which get in our way.

Having decided (Resolved) where you aren’t behaving the way you know you should, Refinement means identifying and adopting the behaviours, values, etc. that you know will serve you much better.

Emphasise – YOUR behaviours, values, etc. – not mine.

That said, people of good character will, in the main, all behave in much the same way as each other. Their speech patterns and dress may be different but they will be honest, congruent, dedicated and just plain ‘good people’. Their values will be similar even if their way of executing on them may change.

BUT don’t be scruffy and tell me you’re rebelling. (Have you noticed how anarchists all dress the same?) Don’t say ‘actually’ and ‘obviously’ and ‘like’ every second word and then deny that you’re allowing yourself to be subject to environmental determinism. (Or use the new opening word that appears to have replaced ‘Yeah, I mean’, – the insidious viral term ‘So’.)

When you do those things you are no longer in charge of you. You’re not living. No. YOU’RE BEING LIVED. You are allowing outside influences to subliminally dictate your behaviours for you.

Refinement means YOU decide what characteristics you want to possess or demonstrate – and then chipping away at the marble until the real, self-designed you finally appears.

It isn’t easy. Right now I am battling with a constant desire to pick at food when I should be losing weight. (See my weight loss plan, below!)

But in the final analysis you can only say ‘I am who I intend to be’ when you have refined yourself enough to be exactly that. Until then, resolve to (re)design yourself – and then get to it!

“By polluting clear water with slime, you will never find good drinking water again.” Aeschylus

Little white lies. Secret vices. Professing one set of values while living another. Spending several years decrying the playing of political games by senior managers and then, on promotion, suddenly ‘seeing’ the truth and joining in instead of challenging those very behaviours that angered you yesterday.

These are examples of the polluting slime that destroys us from the inside. Like cancer is an organism that feeds on its host until the very source of its nutrition dies and kills the cancer that needed it, this psychological slime chips away at our ability to act in accordance with our stated beliefs and values until we are no longer the person we seek to become.

The sad part is that we let it happen. Instead of listening to our conscience – actively listening – we stamp on its voice in preference for the convenience and happiness of the moment, of the immediate gratification. We justify the pie, the cigarette, the alcohol, even the drugs in a ‘one time won’t hurt’ approach. And at that moment, our conscience shouts, “OY! Don’t be STUPID!” And we go ahead and do it anyway.

One amusing experience I had was a woman I worked with walking out of a shop with a refill for her e-cigarette in one hand, and 20 Benson and Hedges King Size in the other. Two years later she proudly told me she hadn’t smoked ‘for a week’. DUH!

It is simple. No, I rephrase that, based on experience. It is simple; knowing what to do when it needs to be done is intellectually simple. Doing the right thing in the moment is a lot harder.

One day last week I decided to start eating salads in work, and declined the kind offer of a chocolate muffin. The very next day, the muffin-pusher walked in to the office to find me tucking in to two – yes, two – Steak slices, bought in a hurried lunch-buying trip to the very same supermarket from which I’d bought the salad.

I did so feeling guilty, and I did so knowing that I was polluting my body with saturated fats – and my mind with the slime of excuse, convenience – and failure.

Teachers used to have a phrase they wrote on many a student’s report card, and one which we should all recall and reinforce in our lives when it comes to listening to our conscience, and living in accordance with what we believe, and what we promote. Three words.

It’s been one of those days. I had a plan, and I intended to keep to it. Then something ‘important and urgent’ came up, which justified the distracted attention that it received. Not to mention the urgent, new email thread that warranted immediate responses.

But then all those other things that were waiting for my focus started shouting at me, including responsibility for walking the dog I dearly love, which I didn’t want, and which I bought for the son who has now got full time work and studies.

Once that was done it really felt that the working day was over. I still had some things left on my ‘to do list’ – and the fresh, new recipe, updated and richly wrapped packet of ‘Excuso’ was nearly opened. I considered three helpings:

“There are only 8 hours left before bedtime and I need to rest.”

“That task can wait for tomorrow – it’ll still get completed ‘just in time’.”

“Another day without exercising won’t matter all that much, will it?”

Thank goodness for the ever-present, “in my planner, on my phone, secured to my wrist and wrapped around my neck” reminders that I have a Personal Mission Statement, one that requires and urges action towards completion those self-designed, values-driven responsibilities that I placed on myself.

I may never get everything done that needs to be done. But I am a lot closer to coming through on the commitments I make to myself (and often to others) because of that document, a document to which I regularly discover myself referring.

This week it even surprised me. I had a commitment to run, in keeping with my Running Programme. Owing to injury I have had to ease back to a level lower than that at which I ran the Baker2Vegas Relay (nearly 12 months ago!), and the programme said ’20 minutes’. That day I reviewed the PMS and came up with the new Latin heading and tagline you would now see on this page, as a result of which I popped out and ran 4.5 miles/40 minutes. Double the intention. And I did the same the next day, which was supposed to be a rest day.

“A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.” Patricia Neal and Richard DeNeut

I had the pleasure, honour and challenge of presenting a principle-centred leadership programme to a class of young people this week, which makes the above quote a little more appropriate and timely. Years ago I approached the UK arm of the 7 Habits ‘people’ about providing Seven Habits training to schools, and as they’d already thought of it themselves (DUH!) they were piqued by my interest and invited me along to a consultation on the subject. Much later I was able to fund and provide a full 7 Habits for Teens programme at a local school, and after a lot of other opportunities came my way I am now able to provide such training on a more formal basis.

When I first started following the 7 Habits, which was as a result of reading First Things First and being enthralled and inspired by the approach to principle centred living, one of the most impactive thoughts I had was, “Why wasn’t I taught this in schools?” As a (then) 35-year-old having a bit of a crisis, and coming through it because of what I had read and applied, I was almost embittered by the fact that I had learned this ‘stuff’ 17 years too late. In fairness, as it had only just become well-known since the publication of the book when I was 28 this was not entirely society’s fault.

But now this kind of training CAN be taught to schools throughout the world, and specifically in the UK, I would ask any of you involved in education to look at the site through which more details can be found, namely, http://www.learninganddevelopmentacademy.com .

Engaging young people and telling them that what society, their environment and their past tells them may not be true and that they are able to control, plan, prepare for and execute on their own destiny is immensely noble. Yes, my Third Resolution is being executed on by my providing this service to teenagers and their teachers, and at the same time this provision allows me to reinforce my own (usually poor) performance in this area.

We learn most what we teach. The more I teach this material the better I get, not only as an individual but as a teacher.

What do you do that teaches you as you serve? What sort of person have you become – or could you become – as a result of discovering your own noble purpose and serving others in a way that simultaneously serves you?

Find out. Then do it. It’d amazingly developmental.

For more on the Third Resolution, invest in The Three Resolutions at Amazon. Or get the Kindle version HERE.

“Don’t argue for other people’s weaknesses; don’t argue for your own. When you make a mistake admit it, correct it, and learn from it – immediately.”Stephen R Covey

Wise words, words completely ignored by politicians. In their defence, they have been taught not to admit their mistakes (and you have to admit before learning from and correcting it, the progression is sound). The Press lambast any politician who makes a mistake to a point which, if done to just about anyone else, could legitimately result in a prosecution for using insulting words and behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Seriously. A momentary spoken gaffe, a failure to remember some obscure, unimportant, untimely or even irrelevant fact – boom, out come the headlines from experts in Googling and 20/20 hindsight who didn’t know either, until they looked it up. Or knew it because they have an interest and expect everyone to give a monkey’s.

I recall a US statesman (I think it was Dick Cheney) being derided for use of an expression along the lines of ‘There are things we know we know, and there are things we don’t know we know. There are things we don’t know we don’t know, and there are things we know we don’t know.’

Which is exactly how the accepted progression from unconscious incompetence, through conscious incompetence and conscious competence, to unconscious competence flows. (Look it up at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_competence) It is how people learn. But evidently the press didn’t know this and headlined the message that Cheney was stupid. Ironically, those who DID know about the Four Stages realised how stupid the press made themselves look.

And the press is not accountable, is it? The Press holds everyone to account, but ask that it does the same in its own regard and the old ‘freedom of the press’ tagline screams at us from their pages. Remember Leveson? Remember the Press stating “we’ll have a Charter”? Where’s that all gone?

I’m also amused when a newspaper tells me I’m outraged about something which, not having read the paper yet, I don’t know about. And then when I read it, I’m still not outraged.

Let me give you a clue – when a report includes lots of emotionally charged adjectives and adverbs, they’re trying to wind you up, or they’re trying to make a story out of something that isn’t. When someone is writing what is admitted to be an ‘Opinion Piece’, it is just that – an Opinion. It may be well meant, it may be authoritative (rarely), but it is not Fact. When a report says, ‘critics are attacking’, it means the enemy is having a go – surprise!! It’s not FACT. Except to the degree ‘critics are attacking something’ is a fact of life.

I have undergone input on overcoming stress from the best, but all too often the writers and trainers focus on stress being caused by AN event – a family argument, potential redundancy at work, a split with a spouse, and so on. But I have always been aware of the ‘true’ story, which is that stress is rarely the consequence of any singular event.

It is all too frequently the result of a whole series of events, occasionally but not always contemporaneous (at once), the combined effect of which is the sudden or even gently insidious onset of some kind of breakdown. And the worst part of this is that the lack of a significant event, or the inability to recognise the drip-drip-drip build-up of smaller stresses, had two effects.

First, the sufferer cannot deal effectively with the stress because s/he cannot clearly see the cause. As we are ‘stimulus-response’ creatures we expect to look at our symptoms and see a clear cause for our emotions, and when it isn’t clear we get all confused, and arguably even more stressed. Unlike a pain we can localise and treat, built-up stress has no scar, wound or ache we can point at and go ‘Aha!’ with.

The second effect is that those around us are also unable to see the ‘significant effect’ and therefore question why it is we are demonstrating the symptoms of stress-related physical or mental distress. I remember a colleague ‘going sick’ with ‘stress’ and those around me could not understand why he was so stressed as (in their eyes) he didn’t do any work and had nothing to be stressed about. I politely pointed out that just because someone is on sick leave from work it doesn’t necessarily follow that work was the cause. In the case in point it was probably more related to domestic issues related to civil legal challenges he was encountering with a questionably motivated local authority.

What is the cure to such stress? I am no psychologist or psychiatrist but one thing leaps out at me from cases like these, based wholly on my own experience of ‘built-up’ stress.

Take control. Recognise what you can do about your circumstances, and take charge of starting the things that need to be started, and stopping those that should be stopped. Let go of the things about which you can do nothing – accept them and move forward. Part of doing this is to identify what the problem is, but not necessarily the cause. Sometimes knowing what the problem is, is enough – the cause gets taken care of ‘by default’ when the problem is addressed. Not always, but more often than you realise.

The YB12 – Best Year Ever Program includes input on overcoming stress. Go to the Have Your Best Year Ever page for more information, or go to www.yb12coach.com

A coaching process with which I am closely involved includes in its programme the concept of living a balanced life. Stephen Covey aficionados may stop reading here, expecting to read about time management and making sure that all roles get the appropriate attention at the appropriate time, but that is not what I’m going to write about. In this context, balanced living means making sure that your life is not wholly focused in one area or, to be more precise, that your life DOES try to encompass a broader range of ‘stuff’.

Last night I was watching the Robert Downey Jr. version of Sherlock Holmes and it occurred that here was an example of someone living just such a balanced life. I watched as Holmes studied bio-mechanics, chemistry, music, psychology, the arts, the martial arts, the culinary arts, and so on. He mastered understanding of the contexts of each, and occasionally the detail. In doing so he underpinned and reinforced his ability to do what he did best, his detecting. His balanced and broad studies supported his ability to carry out his vocation, while not interfering with it.

The Second Resolution, which invited us to focus on character and competence, does not restrict us in terms of that competence; it does not confine us to competence in only one area even if life makes it the most profitable route to professional success. The all-encompassing nature of this Resolution arguably encourages efforts to improve our competence by living a broader experience, reinforcing our character as we do so. By overcoming the Restraining Forces of Pride and Pretension we move past being ‘proud’ of the one thing we do well and seek to take steps* to be modestly content with being able to understand and explain concepts to the degree that we don’t need to pretend we understand things – we actually do understand.

I admit I am guilty of focussing too much in one area – personal development – but that is partly professional imposition and partly a desperate search for something spectacularly new and effective.~

But truly effective, Holmes-like living is better and worth working for. Broader study and experience feeds the ability to express ones-self to a degree that our friends, colleagues and peers understand and accept our ideas far more easily, instead of viewing them with suspicion and doubt.

Balance your competence by widening your understanding of ‘life’ – not just yours, life in general. Read broadly, use what you discover.

That is true balanced living.

*(Oops. Nearly wrote ‘take pride’ there.)

~(When the truth is that adherence to the 7 Habits is all that is needed – the principles serve the detail.)